Christopher John Brennan

Christopher John Brennan Poems

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.
...

Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills,
and fire made solid in the flinty stone,
thick-mass'd or scatter'd pebble, fire that fills
the breathless hour that lives in fire alone.
...

I am shut out of mine own heart
because my love is far from me,
nor in the wonders have I part
that fill its hidden empery:
...

I am driven everywhere from a clinging home,
O autumn eves! and I ween'd that you would yet
...

I SAID, This misery must end:
Shall I, that am a man and know
that sky and wind are yet my friend,
sit huddled under any blow?
...

Deep mists of longing blur the land
as in your late October eve:
almost I think your hand might leave
...

How old is my heart, how old, how old is my heart,
and did I ever go forth with song when the morn was new?
...

Autumn: the year breathes dully towards its death,
beside its dying sacrificial fire;
the dim world's middle-age of vain desire
is strangely troubled, waiting for the breath
...

The droning tram swings westward: shrill
the wire sings overhead, and chill
midwinter draughts rattle the glass
that shows the dusking way I pass
...

Come out, come out, ye souls that serve, why will ye die?
or will ye sit and stifle in your prison-homes
...

The tuberose thickens the air: a swoon
lies close on open'd calyx and slipt sheath
thro' all the garden bosom-bound beneath
...

Each day I see the long ships coming into port
and the people crowding to their rail, glad of the shore
...

THE PANGS that guard the gates of joy,
the naked sword that will be kist,
how distant seem’d they to the boy,
white flashes in the rosy mist!
...


I saw my life as whitest flame
light-leaping in a crystal sky,
and virgin colour where it came
pass'd to its heart, in love to die.
...

MY heart was wandering in the sands,
a restless thing, a scorn apart;
Love set his fire in my hands,
I clasp’d the flame unto my heart.
...

Four springtimes lost: and in the fifth we stand,
here in this quiet hour of glory, still,
while o'er the bridal land
the westering sun dwells in untroubled gold
...

Secreta Silvarum: Prelude

Oh yon, when Holda leaves her hill
of winter, on the quest of June,
...

And does she still perceive, her curtain drawn,
white fields, where maiden Dawn
is anguish'd with the untold approach of joy?
...

Dawns of the world, how I have known you all,
so many, and so varied, and the same!
dawns o'er the timid plains, or in the folds
of the arm'd hills, or by the unsleeping shore;
...

Once, when the sun-burst flew
its banner above broad seas and eastern hills,
my casement knew
...

Christopher John Brennan Biography

Christopher John Brennan was an Australian poet and scholar. Biography Brennan was born in Sydney, to Christopher Brennan (d.1919), a brewer, and his wife Mary Ann (d.1924), née Carroll, both Irish immigrants. His education took place at two schools in Sydney: he first attended St Aloysius' College, and after gaining a scholarship from Patrick Moran, he boarded at St Ignatius' College, Riverview. Brennan entered the University of Sydney in 1888, taking up studies in the Classics, and won a travelling scholarship to Berlin. There he met his future wife, Anna Elisabeth Werth; there, also, he encountered the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé.About this time, he decided to become a poet. In 1893 Brennan's article "On the Manuscripts of Aeschylus" appeared in the Journal of Philology, Brennan began forming a theory about the descent of Aeschylus' extant manuscripts in 1888. Returning to Australia, Brennan took up a position as a cataloguer in the public library, before being given a position at the University of Sydney. In 1914, he produced his major work, Poems: 1913. After Brennan's marriage broke up in 1922, he went to live with Violet Singer, the 'Vie' of his later poems, and, as a result of both his divorce and increasing drunkenness, he was removed from his position at the University in June 1925. The death of Violet Singer in an accident left him distraught, and he spent most of his remaining years in poverty. Brennan died in 1932, after developing cancer. Brennan was not a lyric poet. It was not emotion that drove his work, rather, it displays at its best an architectural, and mythological resonance that informs it. His chief work was designed to be read as a single poem, complete, yet formed of smaller works. It covers not only the basic details of his life, such as his wooing of his wife in the early portions, but also human profundities through mythology, as in the central Lilith section, and the Wanderer sequence. As such, it is among the most widely discussed works of Australian poetry, judging from the prominence of criticism about it and Brennan. Brennan belonged to no particular group in Australian literature. Neither a balladist, nor a member of the emergent "Vision" school, his closest affinities are with the generation of the 1890s, such as Victor Daley. This is not surprising since the bulk of his work was produced during this period. However his importance in Australian letters rests upon the seriousness he approached his task as a poet and his influence upon some later poets, such as Vincent Buckley. Recognition Brennan influenced many of Australian the writers of his generation and who succeeded him, including R. D. FitzGerald, A. D. Hope, Judith Wright and James McAuley. In remembrance, the Fellowship of Australian Writers established the Christopher Brennan Award which is presented annually to an Australian poet, recognising a lifetime achievement in poetry. Brennan Hall and Library at St John's College within the University of Sydney, the Christopher Brennan building in the University's Arts Faculty, and the main library at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview are named in his honour.)

The Best Poem Of Christopher John Brennan

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

Christopher John Brennan Comments

My first read by Mr. Brennan...I was going to leave him a message on the quality of his poem, but alas, he is gone to rest or go where spirits go. Well done Christopher...Charles Anthony Albert

9 6 Reply
Phillip Ellis 22 October 2008

It's good to see Brennan remembered and collected on the site. If you are still active, may I recommend adding the Wanderer sequence, in full from Poems?

11 6 Reply

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